Eddie Herr has the world at its doorstep

The toughest job Thursday at the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships didn't belong to any of the players, notwithstanding their on-court grunts of exertion.

And it didn't belong to the worker at the Smoothie King stand, selling $6 protein platters and $3 packages of gummy bears when she wasn't explaining to the player most definitely not from America that, sorry, we don't carry mustard packets.

You want tough? Then lace up the sneakers of Jimmy Royalty, IMG Academy's head of adult tennis, standing on a wooden ladder, transferring names from a hand-held piece of paper onto a results board seemingly the size of a Broadway stage.

What was the challenge? Well, from that height, you try writing "Vikhlyantseva'' without dropping a letter, or "Parazinskaite'' without developing carpal tunnel.

Not a Smith or Jones among the bunch.

No misspellings either. Apparently.

"No one's complained,'' Royalty said.

No one should, about anything, and why would they anyway? Eddie Herr annually attracts the planet's finest junior tennis players, competing at a world-class venue, in a setting where the word "idyllic'' seems woefully inadequate.

One of the world's biggest junior ITF tournaments played at one venue draws players, parents, agents and college coaches — more than 100 this year — eyeing talent, as well as fans, pulled by the free admission and proximity to the action.

No complaints.

But plenty of feedback.

"And not always in English,'' said Blake Ulrich, IMG's director of events.

It could be the biggest foreign representation this side of the United Nations. In a few years it's likely you'll see many of these teen names on the professional circuit.

Whether you can pronounce them is up to you. This year's event registered more than 1,300 players, age 12-18, from more than 80 countries, their play occupying IMG's 54 courts.

Indeed, walk the grounds this week and you'll hear a litany of languages.

Sixteen-year-old Sandra Samir speaks English, but she's still unique.

The only competitor from Egypt, the Cairo-born Samir, who grew up in the shadow of the Pyramids, is proud of the singular path she elected to take.

"I feel like I'm doing something new that no one did before in Egypt,'' she said.

Those tennis players not lodged at IMG had to secure motel and hotel rooms around the area, and they're not alone. On the opposite side of the IMG campus, 130 teams from throughout North America participated in a United Soccer League tournament.

That's a heck of a lot of pillow mints.

"We see them all over town, doing different things, at restaurants, shopping,'' Ulrich said. They shop, they stop, they spend.

It's called economic impact.

The guy manning the yourgameface.com tent was hoping for his own economic impact. The company specializes in taking photos of players, then transferring the images onto posters.

"Business is great, it's really busy,'' said photographer Jeremy Giddens, who said the company is averaging about 10-15 posters a day, the largest costing $245.